


Have Your Cake (And Eat It Too)

by Flyting



Series: Rumbelle/Dark One OT3 [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Codependency, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, OT3, Pre-Threesome, Rumple has issues, Touching, does it count as twincest if you just look alike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5018413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set before Coffee and Tea. Rumplestiltskin/Belle/The Dark One OT3 domestic fluff. In which Rumple has some issues to work through, and The Dark One is always happy to help.</p><p>  <i>Rumplestiltskin isn’t sure how long he stands there wrapped around the mirror image of himself, its hands stroking his back, his neck, while he drags in deep, shuddering breaths that fill his nose and open mouth with that achingly familiar scent. As if he can breathe enough of it in and finally the stinging emptiness inside will stop. His arms tighten, squeezing, until they start to shake from the strain; until he feels like the pressure is going to break him. Past the point where, if the Dark One were an ordinary man, Rumplestiltskin would wonder if he was hurting him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter has the fluff, second chapter has the smut.

Rumplestiltskin is well acquainted with the feeling of loss, but this is something new entirely. This _aches_ , deep in his bones, like someone reached inside him while he was sleeping and tore the very marrow out of them. What’s left are nothing but exposed nerves and a gaping, jagged emptiness where his magic used to be.  
  
He remembers telling Belle that it felt like losing a limb. Days like this, that seems like an understatement. He has lost his arms, his sight, his heart and lungs and bones…  
  
His magic.  
  
There are still odd moments, here and there, when the thought alone is enough to send him spiraling towards the edge of panic. His powers are gone. Taken. He’ll never get them back, never.  
  
It makes his skin crawl. Makes him feel soft and exposed, like he’s turned over a rock and sent every pale, unarmored part of himself scuttling for cover. _Defenseless_ …  
  
Rumplestiltskin drags in a shaky breath, passing a hand over his eyes. Better to stop that train of thought before it started. It was always easier to fall to pieces than it was to put yourself back together again afterwards. He wasn’t sure how many more times he could do it before the cracks started to show.  
  
The handle of his cane is a familiar weight against his palm as he levers himself up out of the old wingback chair in his study and heads for the hallway. He abandons the book he had been attempting to read on the side table, not bothering to mark his place. He could barely recall a word of it anyway.  
  
He needs a better distraction.  
  
Fresh air. That would help. He’s spent too much of the past month rattling around in this house like an invalid, surrounded by things that do nothing but remind him of what he used to have. Particularly when _what he used to have_ is there every morning staring him in the face and demanding breakfast, like some overgrown housecat.

Last time he saw her, Belle had been downstairs in the front room, using the telephone. Perhaps if she’s done they might go for a walk, just the two of them. The leaves were always beautiful this time of year- it would be relaxing. And her easy grace, her very presence steadies him when panic starts to creep around the edges of his mind.  
  
But the ground floor of the house is silent. Empty.  
  
He circles around to the kitchen and even sticks his head out the door into the back garden just to be sure, but there’s no sign of Belle.

She hadn’t gone upstairs- he would have heard her.

Familiar worry bubbles up in the back of his mind, and with it that unwelcome, creeping sense of dread that if anything has happened to her, he’s useless- _worse than useless_ \- without his powers…  
  
Before anxiety can blossom into a full blown panic, he catches sight of a note pinned to the refrigerator door, written in Belle’s looping, elegant script.

  
  
_Rumple,_  
  
_I’ve just gone out to help Ariel with an errand. Didn’t want to bother you if you were resting. Try to eat something._  
_There are sandwiches and a piece of that cake left for you in here if you want them._

  
_If the other one reads this, the cake is not for you. Please don’t touch it._  
  
_I’ll be home soon!_  
  
_Love,_  
_Belle    x_  
  


His eyes linger over the signature, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, before he folds the note up carefully and tucks it in his pocket. He could live another hundred years and never understand how he still manages to wake up every morning with her beside him and his ring on her finger.  
  
A cursory glance in the refrigerator reveals exactly what he expected to find- two turkey and cheese sandwiches, made just the way he likes them, next to an empty plate covered in what appear to be chocolate stains. He nearly laughs.

He sticks the empty plate in the sink. Better to let Belle think he ate it himself.

The duplicity gives him just a twinge of guilt. Or at least, he’s pretty sure it’s guilt- it’s taken some time to relearn the feel of his own emotions now they’re no longer being filtered through the curse. Everything is brighter now, more alive. Happiness is warmer than he remembered. Anger no longer comes in blinding flashes, like lightning.  
  
He truly doesn’t want to go back to the way things were. That’s the worst of it.  
  
He want his magic back, of course. Wants it so badly there are times when he can barely sleep at night for how much the emptiness aches. But his longing is a spoiled, selfish, childish thing.  
  
He wants the magic, the power, but having tasted freedom he finds that he’s no longer willing to pay the price for it. What he _wants_ is… well, to have his cake and eat it too. To have the power back without the curse.  
  
The world doesn’t work that way, of course.  But knowing that doesn’t stop the itching in his bones, the deep, nagging, irritatingly constant sense that _something’s missing_ and if he could only get it back the pain would go away.

Exhaustion steals up over him in a wave. He leans on the refrigerator door, forehead pressed against the cool metal, until it passes and he feels up to dragging himself back upstairs. On second thought, maybe he’ll rest until Belle returns.

When he opens the door to the bedroom, already shrugging off the wool pullover he wears over his shirt and toeing off his socks, Rumplestiltskin discovers that the bed and floor have been covered by a small mountain range of clothing. Their clothing, he realizes, as one of Belle’s skirts comes sailing out of the closet to land on the bed, on top of a pile of his trousers.  
  
Rumplestiltskin sighs. “What are you doing?” He asks, picking a stray sock off the lampshade.  
  
The Dark One emerges, carrying one of Rumplestiltskin’s shirts over its arm.  
  
He hates the way its presence still pulls at him like a magnet the closer they are to each other. He’s learning to resist it, though it doesn’t seem to be working today as he finds himself drifting closer without meaning to.  
  
“Mm, just... browsing.” It says, walking around him to lay another shirt out on the bed alongside one of Belle’s more billowy blouses and peering at them thoughtfully.

It’s traded in their old leather and silk for one of his suits and a wine red shirt. The shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, exposing a line of pebbled green-gold skin. It’s not unflattering, though the effect is strange to say the least. Like looking in a fun-house mirror at himself.  
  
At what he _used to be_. He isn’t sure whether the thought pleases him or not.  
  
“Please, make yourself at home.” Rumplestiltskin says dryly. He drops his sweater onto a pile by his feet. “Actually, wait- don’t. I’m going to sleep. Kindly find something else of mine to wreck.”  
  
Leaning his cane against the side of the bed, he begins sorting through a pile of trousers that are only partly wrinkled, shaking each pair out and draping them over his arm as neatly as he can. Irritation flairs, not as sharp as he remembers but surprisingly hot. It’s going to take him half an hour to tidy up this mess by hand.  
  
The Dark One cocks its head at Rumplestiltskin.  
  
“Is this about the cake? Because it wasn’t that good.”  
  
“No.” One of Belle’s silk tops, now badly crumpled, is rescued from beneath the trouser pile. It’ll need to be ironed. _Wonderful_.


	2. Chapter 2

  
There is a _snap_ and the clothes draped over his arm vanish along with the ones strewn across the room. Rumplestiltskin turns and sees that everything has been neatly replaced back in the closet where it came from. Not a sock out of place. Like magic.  
  
It shouldn’t feel like a slap in the face, and yet…  
  
Secretly Rumplestiltskin is glad for the fact that the darkness has been trapped in its own body, safely out of his reach. He’s told Belle that he doesn’t want to go back, and he means it. He knows that taking up the curse again would be a terrible idea. But there are times, like now, when he’d rather not put himself to the test. Magic, even little magic like this, leaves a lingering tension in the room. Like the building pressure in the air before a storm. It reminds him of home, sets that ache in his bones itching again.   
  
He closes his eyes, hands balling into fists on the coverlet. Suddenly the Dark One is there next to him and there is a hand low on his back, stroking the base of his spine. “What, then?” it says, his own voice soft in his ear. “Come now, no secrets. Not from me.”  
  
He shakes his head. It wasn’t fair, that selfish, childish part of him wanted to say. Wasn’t fair that you took that from me too, after everything I did for you. He snorts. They both knew what the response would be to that.   
  
Instead of answering, he turns, leaning his hip against the bed for balance, so that he can bury his head in the crook of the other’s neck. It feels like coming home.

The Dark One tilts its head a little to accommodate him; lets Rumplestiltskin wind his arms tightly around its waist, pulling their bodies flush against each other- as if he can pull them back together by force- and _oh-_  
  
Rumplestiltskin presses his face against the skin beneath him, the better to breathe it in. There, under the scent of their laundry soap; something dark and bitter, like pressing on a bruise.  
  
It smells like magic.  
  
A needy little whine escapes him. Its very skin smells like magic. _His_ magic. He breathes it in. There’s an answering pull from deep in that hollow, empty place inside him, as if his body can sense how close it is to its missing piece.  
  
The arm that isn’t around his waist comes up and then there is a hand rubbing at the bare skin on the back of his neck. Skin to skin. Grounding him. He doesn’t bother to explain himself- he doesn’t have to. He never has. The darkness has always known exactly what he needed.  
  
 Rumplestiltskin isn’t sure how long he stands there clinging to the mirror image of himself, its hands stroking his back, his neck, while he drags in deep, shuddering breaths that fill his nose and open mouth with that achingly familiar scent. As if he can fill himself with it and finally the stinging emptiness inside will stop. His arms tighten, squeezing, until they start to shake from the strain; until he feels like the pressure is going to break him. Past the point where, if the Dark One were an ordinary man, Rumplestiltskin would wonder if he was hurting him.

It isn’t enough. He can’t get enough air- enough of this- in his body. This feels like drowning and it still _isn’t enough_ -

His tongue darts out, tasting the rough skin- _his_ skin- beneath him and bringing it back into his mouth. It’s saltier than he expected, more human, but underneath it is what he’s looking for- that familiar oily bitterness which he associates with magic.

The hand on the back of his neck spasms, sharp nails biting into his skin. He groans and does it again, tilting his head to better press an open-mouthed kiss against the underside of its jaw. Laves the fluttering pulse-point with his tongue. And yes, _this_ is what he needed. _This_ is what he’s been missing.  
  
There is a sound that might have been a short gasp. The Dark One pulls back sharply to look at him. It’s a measuring stare that makes him feel like his insides are being strung up for display. He knows that look. He used to see it in the mirror every day.

It’s surprised. And it makes it uneasy, he realizes, to not know exactly what he’s thinking. To be surprised by him.

But they are still pressed close, body to body, neither of them willing to pull away. Does it feel the same hollow ache that he does? That biting emptiness inside where the other used to be?

 The Dark One’s breath is warm against his face; unexpectedly sweet.   
  
 He leans in quick, unthinking, pressing their mouths together.   
  
It’s an open-mouthed, sloppy sort of kiss. The other’s lips part easily under his insistent tongue, allowing Rumplestiltskin to take and taste as deeply as he wants. He chases that hint of bitterness beneath the sweet, pulling it back into his own mouth. Devouring it. And every time he pulls back it’s there, goading him on- all teeth, biting at his lower lip, down his jaw, and tongue in hot little flashes. He digs short nails dig into the fabric covering its sides, resisting the urge to shift their hips together like an animal.   
  
One of them is making low, urgent little sounds and Rumplestiltskin cannot for the life of him tell which one it is. Perhaps it’s both. He breaks away from the kiss to catch his breath, leaning their foreheads together.   
  
“Feel better?” it asks, low and self-satisfied- and just a little breathless, he notices smugly- into the shared air between them.

At some point, without him noticing, the hand on his back has crept up under his shirt. It rests there, warm against his skin, keeping him in place as the other hand drags down, around his neck and down the center of his chest. One sharp fingernail clicks as it trails over the line of buttons on his shirt.  
  
“Or is there still something you need?”  
  
Distantly, Rumplestiltskin thinks that he would be embarrassed- _should_ be embarrassed- for his reaction, for the way his stiff cock presses eagerly up against the other’s thigh, had any ability to feel shame in front of the Dark One not been burned out him decades ago. It was right- there are no secrets between them. They’ve been far closer. Seen and done so much worse together.  
  
He licks his dry lips to moisten them. “Why? Are you planning to do something about it?”  
  
It slips a hand between them, cupping him through the front of his trousers. Rumplestiltskin groans.  
  
“Now now, dearie, don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten how this works,” it murmurs. _Squeezes_. Rumplestiltskin chokes on a sharp breath.   
  
The button on his trousers flicks open and he feels the zipper being tugged down carefully over his straining erection. Rumplestiltskin closes his eyes, letting his head drop forward onto its shoulder as it slips a hand deftly down under the waistband of his pants. Warm fingers circle his cock, gripping him loosely. Just a tease- a hint of pressure at the base, nothing more.  
  
“If you want something, you have to _take it_.”  
  
He knows the words. He’s heard them from a dozen lips- they’re the same ones it’s whispered in his ear for a century- but oh, it should not give him this fierce, low throb of pleasure to hear them crooned aloud in his own voice.  
  
A groan tears its way out of his throat, turning into a growl of frustration as he realizes that the other isn’t moving. The hand around his cock rests there, frustratingly, infuriatingly _still_. Of course it can never simply give him what he wants- he should have known- always has to make him do it himself-  
  
One finger taps gently at the head, almost playfully, spreading the wetness there.   
  
“I really do hate you,” he hisses, giving in and shifting his hips a little, testing, pushing himself into its circling fingers.  
  
“Mm, no you don’t,” it preens, stroking the hair away from his face with the other hand.  
  
Its grip shifts, giving him the flat of its palm to rub himself against. Rumplestiltskin gives in and _ruts_ \- pushing himself up on his toes to get the angle exactly the way he needs, until he catches the head on the pad of its thumb with every stroke.  He finds a rhythm and bucks his hips forward again and again, breath coming in harsh pants against its neck, until the building pain the movement causes in his bad leg outpaces his pleasure.  
  
He stops- curses- grinding his teeth until the pain ebbs again. Its hand goes still as soon as he does, once again depriving him of that desperate, wonderful friction.

“It wouldn’t kill you just once to-“

Changing tactics, he slides his trousers and underwear down his thighs, giving them more room, so that he can close his own hand over top of its; tan over mottled gold. He repositions them, twining their fingers together around his cock and simply moves the other’s hand for him. Down and then back up in one smooth slide. Then again, faster. He works himself in a desperate, greedy rhythm, slick fluids smearing the other one’s palm.  
  
It doesn’t take much. He’s closer than he realized. Soon there’s familiar pleasure building at the base of his spine, tugging urgent little noises out of his mouth with every stroke. When the Dark One leans in, nudging his head aside to press wet, sucking kisses along to column of his throat it simply _breaks_. He comes in thick pulses over both their hands, his mind a tangled flash of disconnected images- _the line of the Dark One’s shoulders in his suit, Belle’s breasts when she’s beneath him, their hands on his cock._  
  
Rumplestiltskin lets his head fall forward onto the other’s shoulder and simply rests there for a minute.

“Better?” it asks.

He nods against its chest. It’s a struggle not to simply collapse on top of the Dark One, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He could sleep for a week. Really sleep, he realizes, as for the first time since the curse was broken that aching void inside him seems to have quieted.

He is distantly aware of a hand that’s not his own wiping something onto the back of his shirt. He gives the Dark One a halfhearted shove. It would be irritating, he’s sure, were he capable of feeling anything other than pleasantly boneless at the moment. Still, he has just enough presence of mind to take off the soiled thing. His hands fumble with the buttons, suddenly clumsy, until the Dark One takes pity on him and undoes the last pair for him. He shrugs the shirt off, using the balled up fabric to tidy himself up a bit, before pitching it and his wrinkled trousers into the laundry basket.

He stumbles to the closet, digging around for fresh clothes.  His earlier exhaustion is catching up with him; cashing in its chips. He wants to sleep. He doesn’t want to think. He suspects that there are a lot of thoughts lurking in the periphery of his mind, most of which are going to be unsavory. He’ll deal with them later. First sleep.

The last thing Rumplestiltskin is aware of, as he crawls into bed is a warm figure curling up against his back.

 

  



End file.
